The Missing
by GreenWood Elf
Summary: His daughter he knew, his son he didn't. Priest reunites with the boy he left behind, the child of a martyred mother, orphaned by his father's guilt. A continuation of Cross.
1. Day One: Father

**Author's Note: **Hello and welcome to "The Missing" a three chapter continuation of my recently completed fic "Cross". This story takes place between chapters twenty-eight and thirty, covering the three days Priest spent at the orphanage reuniting with his son. I do hope you enjoy this first chapter!

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest.

**The Missing**

**Day One: Father**

_Previously…_

_Priest nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes, Peter's eyes, squinting in the sunlight. A silent exchange passed between them. Priestess knew what was needed of her. She moved through the doorway when Priest stepped aside, lingering just long enough to whisper, "He's name is Peter."_

_Priest nodded again. _

_Peter was coming in from the yard, his long arms swinging by his sides and he almost ran into his father. The boy stopped short and looked up. Priest looked down at him._

"_Do you know who I am?" he asked the child._

_Peter didn't hesitate. He found his father's face and held it in his gaze, the wish of a lifetime repaid in an instant. "I sure hope so," he said.  
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><p>Peter did not look like him. It was the first thought that crossed Priest's mind as he beheld his son, the gangly child who was a few years short of adolescence, but had already begun to shed the obvious vestiges of boyhood. He was Rebecca's son though, that much was clear. The mother had left her memory upon the child, the stain of an unlamented soul who had been wronged in almost everyway. Peter's hair was coarse and red. He had a high forehead like his mother, although Priest refused to recognize the freckles that were his. And his movements, his ticks and twitches, were a pantomime of Rebecca's gestures. The boy's legs were particularly restless. He tapped his feet. He swung his skinny calves. He slipped his ankles around the legs of his chair, toes pointed downward, his bony knees bulging in his khaki trousers.<p>

Priest stood quite still as he watched his son. He wondered if he would recognize him if the boy had not been pointed out to him. He wondered if he would he have ever known….

Priest's scalp itched, the bristles of his close-cropped hair drenched with sweat. The room he was in had low ceilings and the heat concentrated in the cramped space, despite the lazy fan rotating from its socket overhead. Sister Elizabeth, the matron of the orphanage, had graciously lent father and son her office for their reunion. And they were shut away from the rest of the world now, two wary animals who relied on instinct more than trust. Priest glanced at the fan above. The atmosphere was similar to that of the interrogation cells the Church kept in its prisons.

And yet, there was some reflection of humanity to be found in the office. The religious statues and pictures that adorned the walls were benign, smiling saints, clouds and angels. It was obvious that the room doubled as Sister Elizabeth's living quarters. There was a pitcher and water bowl set carefully to the side. A door on his left, which had been opened just a crack, showed a tiny bedroom. Priest tried to ignore these small, feminine touches. He was reminded of Rebecca's quarters back at the Order's monastery. He had been there, a few times…

And now Peter was here, sitting in the chair before Sister Elizabeth's plain and practical desk. Priest wondered if the matron called her charges to her office for disciplinary purposes and if the boy was scared. To lessen his authoritative presence, he leaned against the desk and braced his palms on the lip. This was the hardest part. This was the moment he would probably remember for years to come, when he first saw his son and didn't know what to say to him. Again, he was failing Rebecca. Again, he was sacrificing what should have remained sacred. And that was a sin he wouldn't be able to wipe clean. It was his eternal penance, not a burden, but a blessing, the nails driven deeper, the cross carried upon a willing back.

Priest stared at the child and was shocked when he saw pale blue eyes looking back at him. The boy, he realized, was much stronger than he had ever been. Like his mother, so unrepentantly strong…

Peter slipped his ankles from behind the legs of his chair. The sides of his shoes scraped against the floor, leaving smudges of desert dust and dirt. "It's hot in here," he said. "Even with the fan." A bead of sweat trailed down his neck and along the curve of his collar.

Priest nodded, his voice hidden in the back of his parched throat. "Not much better than outside," he finally managed.

Peter raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. He was glancing at the window, which had been fastened in place by obstinate looking latches. Priest followed his gaze and divined his meaning. He stepped closer to the sill.

"You probably should leave that," Peter said in a respectful undertone. "The wind'll only bring the sand in and it stings when the gusts come real hard, worse than sunburn." Pushing himself out of the chair, he moved over to the pitcher on the washstand and lifted a ceramic cup from a shelf underneath. He had to use both hands to tip the pitcher and when he did, the water only dribbled into the cup in a small stream. Peter was careful. Meticulous. He didn't spill a drop.

"Sister Elizabeth says we should never have to ask for water," he explained. "If we want something to drink, we're allowed to just go and get it, even in the middle of lessons."

"Sister Elizabeth is very considerate," Priest noted, slightly awed by the child's resourcefulness.

Peter handed the cup to him, their fingers, small and large, interlocking for the briefest moment. "She's fair," he said.

Priest felt awful taking a drink before the boy, but he didn't want to offend Peter. He sipped slowly, just enough to wet his lips and tongue, before trying to hand the cup back to the child. But Peter only shook his head.

"I never go thirsty," he said.

Somehow, that made Priest feel better.

He took another drink from the cup and then set it on the desk. A ring of moisture formed around the base of the mug. Priest tried to scrub it away with his thumb. He hoped that Sister Elizabeth wouldn't mind.

Peter had gone back to his chair and he was swinging his legs again. Priest noticed that his shoelace was untied. The string made a soft, scratching sound as it dragged against the floor, like edge of a broom. He wasn't sure why, but he almost started to smile.

"The Priestess said you've been looking for me," Peter muttered. He had a habit of chewing on his cheek, a nervous gesture, Priest assumed. Why couldn't he put the child at ease? It had been so much easier with Lucy, the girl he remembered, the small, peachy-cheeked baby who had cooed and cried when he held her in his arms. Would it have been the same with Peter, he mused. Would he have loved the boy from the moment he was born?

And did he love his son now?

The question was treacherous, a fanged, sinister threat. It was hard for Priest to set aside his guilt. His perception of the boy was colored by the taint of a remembered sin and a betrayal that still lingered ten years later. He had left Rebecca to die. And he had left Peter to this…

_What if I can't make it up to him?_

Priest ran the toe of his boot along the coarse grain of the unfinished floorboards. He was terribly aware of Peter's eyes, _his_ eyes, set right on him.

"I'm glad I was able to find you," he said at length.

Peter sat up straight. He had sunburned cheeks and a smile that was familiar. "Sister Elizabeth only told me a little about you," he replied in a rush. "She figured you were dead. Vamps, you know. She said it was the vamps that got my mama and they must've gotten you too. I always knew you were Priests though…but your cross doesn't look like I imagined it. I thought it might be a little smaller. And black. Not brown."

Priest grimaced. There was a painful innocence in Peter, owing both to his isolation at the orphanage and his general ignorance. Silently, he thanked Sister Elizabeth for sparing the boy most of the details of his mother's death, which Priest himself would certainly not rush to supply. Rebecca had not been killed by vampires, although she had died a hero's death. Peter, however, was too young to know the truth.

The Monsignors had murdered his mother for breaking her vow. And Peter was the catalyst, he was the most precious sin, the bastard child who seemed more righteous than the all the pious fury of the Church itself.

Priest blinked. He knew Rebecca would be proud of her son. And so to, was he.

"I'm sorry Sister Elizabeth assumed that I was no longer alive," he said, trying to render his voice soft, but managing only to retain his usual gruffness.

Peter suddenly looked at his feet. "I kinda figured that's why you never came to get me before," he said, "if you were dead."

Priest was surprised at how easily the boy could wound him. It was the mark of a parent, he supposed, to care so much for a child and in his pain he rejoiced. The apathy he had feared had only been a misconception and beneath the hollow pit of his guilt, the hole that had deepened within him over the years, Priest thrived on his hope. No, things weren't the same as they were with Lucy. Not even close. But he could find another connection here… or make one anew.

"Does that disappoint you?" Priest asked. He knew he could not deflect Peter's own sense of abandonment, but perhaps there was a way to edge around it. Their wounds were still too raw to be touched and any misstep now could signal the fatal death blow.

Peter shrugged, his shoulders jerking beneath his beige shirt. His was chewing on the inside of his cheek again and his lips were pushed together in a tight line, the corners of his mouth dipping down into a tell-tale frown. For a minute, he stopped swinging his foot and the hum of the rotating fan overhead filled up the empty space of silence in the room. Priest listened to the whir of the slender blades, his heart providing an awkward counter beat.

Peter glanced up at his father, squinting, as if he were looking at him through the cutting glare of the sun. "You didn't want me," he mumbled.

Priest wasn't certain if he was asking a question or simply affirming what he already believed to be true. He opened his mouth to respond, but found himself mute. The pulsating heat, that throbbing, unforgiving warmth, seemed to leave the room, the slick of sweat on his neck cooling until he was chilled. He thought back to the Order's monastery in Cathedral City and the labyrinthine corridors and high-ceilinged, hopeless dormitories that were always cast under the pall of a crypt-like cold. It had been a relief, the few times he had visited Rebecca in her quarters. Her bed, although narrow, gave them an excuse to cling closer to each other, their limbs a hectic tangle and her hair, her red hair, spread out over the pillow…

_My God_, Priest thought, looking at his orphaned son, who had been sacrificed to appease his parents' guilt, young Isaac led to the altar. _My God, how will he ever forgive me?_

"It wasn't that," he said in a desperate attempt to wash clean the unseemly truth. "I couldn't keep you with me. I'm sure Sister Elizabeth told you stories about the War. I was on the front lines…fighting to make sure you were safe here. I couldn't be with you…and neither could your mama, although I know she wanted to."

"But they wouldn't let her." Peter had his hands clenched over his knees. "Sister Elizabeth told me…she told me a lot of things. Priests can't have children. They're not supposed to. My mama knew that, didn't she? What about you?"

Priest sank against the desk, surprisingly weak in the legs. He felt as though he were trying to stand up against a sandstorm, with the wind screaming down along the plains and he was blinded and beaten. He was being pushed back, back…

_It's going to hurt_, he thought. _All he'll remember of me is that I hurt him._

"There are rules," he began, his voice guttering. "All Priests have to follow them. Your mama and I said we would, but…we also had you. Now I don't regret that and I know your mama definitely didn't. She loved you, Peter and so do I. That's important for you to remember. You were always loved."

He wasn't sure if his words resonated with the boy. Children were hard to read and Peter had already dropped his head, staring at his lap. There were a lot of questions left that Priest knew he would have to answer and although he didn't know if he'd ever be able to satisfy his son's curiosity and longing, he thought he might as well try.

And it wouldn't be a penance or another punishment. It wouldn't be a sacrifice he would be forced to endure. This was a gift he could give gladly, willingly, to the child he had always been missing, to the mother he had never quite forgotten.

Priest thought back to the few fleeting moments he had held Lucy after the train wreck, how good it had felt to cradle his daughter in his arms, no longer the squirming baby, but his child nonetheless. And here was Peter sitting before him, not quite grown, but just as lonely and vulnerable as Lucy had been.

Priest crossed the small space between them and he laid his rough hand on the boy's head, his fingertips grazing over that red, red hair. But when his son looked up at him, he finally recognized the eyes, the eyes that looked like his and the face, with freckles on his sunburned cheeks.

"I figure I could stay a little while," Priest said. "A couple of days, maybe, if Sister Elizabeth will allow it."

Peter did more than shrug, he nodded, the top of his head bumping against Priest's palm. "Hey," the boy said, his voice small and wondering, "what do you want me to call you?"

Priest didn't hesitate. He gave his son the name that everyone used, the title he had been known by, but never deserved until now. "Father," he said. "You can call me Father."

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><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Thanks so very much for reading! If you have a free minute, please leave me some feedback. Reviews are better than all the chocolate Easter bunnies in the world. ;)

The next installment is in the works and should be posted in roughly two weeks. Until then, take care and be well! And to those who celebrate, Happy Easter!


	2. Day Two: Mother

**Author's Note: **Sorry this took so long, guys! I've been having some significant health issues lately (nothing life-threatening, of course) which have sidetracked me with doctor visits, tests, hospital visits, etc. I honestly wanted to write this chapter sooner but my energy levels were way too low. Again, sorry for the delay! I feel horrible for keeping my loyal readers waiting.

Before I jump into this chapter, I just want to reiterate how thankful I am for the support of my readers and reviewers, **Avid Reader 2012, Aphrodite96, saichick, jari **and **carly88D**. In addition, I would like to thank all the readers who have added this story to their favorites/author alerts lists. I do hope you enjoy this update!

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest.

**Day Two: Mother**

Priest was used to waking up in a strange bed. His lifestyle during the War had been nomadic to say the least, requiring him to travel from outpost to outpost, city to city, wherever the vampire threat loomed largest and wherever the fickle whims of the Church decided to place him. He was not accustomed, however, to being roused by the sound of children. There was nothing gentle about the chorus of voices that jolted him from a surprisingly sound sleep. Lifting his head off the lumpy pillow, which he guessed was sawdust instead of feathers, he heard at least a dozen pairs of bare feet racing down the corridor outside his door. The sound of running water followed, liquid splashing inside a metal basin. Girls shrieked. A few of the older boys muttered harmless curses. And there was laughter, an abundance of giggles and guffaws and a few snorts. Somewhere in the distance, a bell was ringing.

Priest sat up and threw his legs over the side of his borrowed bed. Sister Elizabeth had graciously shown him to an empty room the night before, after he had been brazen enough to intrude upon her hospitality. The matron of the orphanage had been more than obliging when he expressed his intention to spend a few days with his son, and she had given him free use of a room that had been set aside for the visiting clergymen who were supposed to come every month to say Mass, although they rarely showed up anymore.

The square, Spartan room suited Priest's taste and he had fallen asleep while only on the second decade of his Rosary. But he felt rather lazy now, to have slept past dawn and straight into the morning. Glancing out the single window that had been cut into the wall opposite his bed, he saw that the sun was already casting long shadows on the floor. He rubbed his face with his hands and felt the gritty residue of sand and sweat on his skin. Vaguely, he envied the children splashing away in the washroom. He could certainly use a bath himself.

The volley of voices was growing faint as he listened, moving further down the corridor. He thought he heard a sharp reprimand from one of the sisters, firm, but not mean-spirited. There was a certain orderliness to the orphanage that Priest could appreciate, having spent so many years as a novice himself. But he had not been a child when the Church found him, of course. He had been a young man with a wife and a baby daughter of his own.

Priest was aware of all the muscles in his neck tightening as he tried to swallow. Pushing his feet into the boots he had left by the side of the bed, he thought of Peter growing up without a home, herded along in this crowd of lonely children, unnoticed by the larger world, which did not care to be burdened by dependents.

And there had been so many years, Priest thought, so many years wasted. His son was ten and would soon be a teenager. There was at least some comfort knowing that Lucy had been raised by her mother and his brother Owen, but the same certainly couldn't be said for Peter.

Priest wondered if the boy knew he had been cheated. Did he sense, already, that his life was wretchedly unfair?

A trickle of anger seeped into his veins. Priest preferred his silent fury to his guilt, which was more ravenous and had nearly devoured him whole. It would be worse if he let the boy see him like this. Peter deserved a better father. And he deserved a mother too, the mother Rebecca would have been if the Monsignors had not taken her away from them both…

Priest stood at the end of his bed and stared at the plain wooden cross that had been fixed on the wall a few feet above his pillow. He was ever aware of the sacred mark on his forehead, the tattoo he had recently begun to view as a stain and not a sign of favor or piety. He was glad that there was no mirror in the room. It would be too difficult, too painful, to stare at his reflection and see his son's eyes looking back at him.

The sounds of the children in the corridor had long died away and Priest was intent enough on his musings to be lulled by the fragile quiet. He did not hear the short, hesitant knock on his door, nor the creaking of the hinges as it was slowly pushed open. But then before he realized it, before he could gather himself and neatly tuck away all his doubts and private misgivings, Peter had inched his way over the threshold.

Priest jerked his head to the side, shocked.

"Sorry," the boy murmured when he felt his father's gaze on him. "I thought you heard me knocking."

"Of course," Priest replied quickly. Peter's wariness stung him and he tried to fix a reassuring smile on his tired face.

Peter grinned. He was apple-cheeked from his morning wash and his mop of red hair had been pressed down on his head by the rough work of a comb. But his clothes, the tan uniform of pants that fell just above the ankle and a low collared, button down shirt, were freshly laundered. In his hands he held a blue cloth napkin, the loose ends tied into a knot. It was this Peter presented to his father, shyly, a small offering that seemed so out of place when coupled with his boyish energy.

"Sister Elizabeth thought you might be hungry," he muttered. "She said I should bring this to you so you wouldn't have to eat with all the others in the dining hall. It's hot in there, anyway, even in the mornings. And noisy. The sisters always let us talk during meals…but you wouldn't like it."

Priest took the bundle from Peter and in undoing the cloth, he saw two thick slices of corn bread, the crumbs spilling out over the napkin and onto the floor by his feet. He wasn't exactly hungry at the moment, but something in Peter's hopeful expression made him compliant.

"Thank you," Priest told the boy. He looked around for a place to eat his meal, but the furniture in the room was indeed sparse. In the end, he dropped back down onto the edge of his bed, spreading out the napkin on a small washstand nearby. Peter still lingered by the threshold. Priest beckoned to him.

"Here," he said, handing one of the slices to his son.

Peter shook his head. "I already ate…" he started to say, but then seemed to think better of it.

Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, the boy climbed onto the bed next to Priest and accepted the bread. Priest watched him for a moment as he broke off the crispy corners of the bread and at them slowly. It was strange seeing his child eat, noticing the little habits that would have been dear to him now, if only he had known his son.

Priest turned his attention to his breakfast. His stomach was sour, but he took a big bite and chewed. The act of sharing a meal with his son was only a pantomime, he realized, the mimicry of the domestic life they had never shared. He coughed, the crumbs tickling his throat and wished heartily for water.

Peter nibbled half-heartedly on his slice, looking at his father out of the corner of his eye. A shaft of sunlight fell between them and the air was colored sepia, tiny motes of dust and sand suspended in the buttery yellow beam. Peter dropped his eyes to his lap.

"Sister Elizabeth says she'll excuse me from lessons today," he said. The boy spoke so softly that even in the silence of the room, Priest had to strain to hear him. "She said this is my time to talk to you, to ask you things. I…I tried to think of some questions last night, before I went to bed, but I don't know. I don't…" He paused and shrugged.

Priest was daunted by the child's shyness. With difficulty, he forced down the last dry bite of bread and swallowed. A strange feeling of helplessness conquered him. Priest felt as though he were swimming against the rising tide, being pushed back underwater every time he came to the surface and attempted to gulp air into his lungs. He was vulnerable, sitting there in the small bedroom with the laughter of children echoing in his ears and his son needing something from him, needing something, but what?

Rebecca would know, of course. She had always been frank, all her gentleness sacrificed to her humorless manner. She would have been direct with her son. Brutal, even. Priest knew it wouldn't trouble her to hurt him if she had to. Rebecca was strong, in that way. She was unrelenting.

It occurred to Priest that Peter might not have been best served by the company of his own mother. Rebecca, for all her brilliance as a warrior, had experienced maternal instinct only in the form of desperation, when she tried to safeguard the life of her unborn child while the vultures of the Church circled. And while her efforts were admirable, they could not help her son now. The boy needed tenderness, not the hardened reflexes of a battle-worn soldier. He needed someone like Rowan, who for all her resilience, was not overcome by the raw, aggressive power that characterized Rebecca.

Looking at his son, lost for words, Priest wished that he had not sent Rowan and Seth ahead of him. Although in the past he had preferred and even sought solitude, he was uncomfortable in this house of lonely children and useless to assuage the longing of one sad little boy who already had put too much faith in him.

"It's all right," he said, trying to assure both himself and Peter. "We don't….we don't have to talk about anything in particular."

"But there are some things," the boy piped up. He was picking at his slice of bread, crushing the crumbs between his fingers. "Things that I've wondered about. Stuff Sister Elizabeth couldn't tell me. Like what you looked like…and Mama. Was she real pretty? Was she nice?"

Priest braced his hands on the bed. He was nearly undone, wounded in a subtle way by Peter's innocence. It made sense, of course, that his son wanted an ideal mother, a vision he could still hold close to him, a talisman of a lost childhood. Peter wanted her to be beautiful. He wanted the dream he had built around the concept of motherhood to be real. For him, Rebecca was a soft, gentle fantasy. She was the self-made comfort that embraced him at night and watched over him from the benign heavens. She was the angel he could keep to himself, that special secret that he didn't have to share or show to anyone. And now he was asking his father to confirm his devotion to the lie that could not possibly represent Rebecca the woman, Rebecca the Priestess, Rebecca the warrior.

Priest shut his eyes for a moment and tried to think. He could feel his son shifting on the bed beside him, his curiosity making him fidget. What was he supposed to tell the child?

It was easy to remember Rebecca as she was, not as the boy wanted her to be. He could not tell Peter that his mother was beautiful. She hadn't been. Priest recalled her face, the torn and jagged nostril, the too hard eyes that guarded her own hurt and loneliness. He thought back to the day he had first seen her enter the chapel with such gusto, a woman of severe austerity and aloofness that set her apart from the shaking novices she would mold and bend to the Church's will. Her back was always razor straight, her figure slim and tapered beneath her black tunic. She didn't need her boots for height. He remembered that Rebecca had been tall when she stood toe-to-toe with him. And her hair, it reminded him of Shannon's, even slicked back in a tight plait. Red hair that he had let tumble across his face and she had looked like a real woman then, a creature of flesh and blood and desire, with her tresses loose and wild.

"Your Mama was tall," Priest said, his eyes snapping open. His lips were as dry as sandpaper, roughening both his voice and his sparse, meager words. "She had red hair, a bit like yours."

Peter flattened his hand over his brow, straightening his bangs. "Really?"

"The exact color," Priest confirmed.

Peter's eyes widened, the whites nearly swallowing his pupils whole. "And was she nice? Was she sweet-like?"

The morning sun had moved across the bed and it scorched the back of Priest's neck. He rubbed his hand over the hot skin, feeling the nub of bone where his spine began. He was thinking of the time Rebecca had ordered an entire outpost razed to the ground. The siege had been necessary to snuff out a colony of vampires who had cleverly constructed an elaborate tunnel beneath the town's main street to connect two large hives, and when complete, it had rivaled the Church's own above-ground railway system. The ensuing fire had gutted the vampire's tunnel, along with most of the homes that unknowingly sat atop it. Families were left turned out, their every living possession charred and diminished into an ashy waste that the wind gleefully picked up and scattered over the plains.

And then there was Rowan's judgment of Rebecca, her unwavering conviction that she was cruel, that her bones had been poisoned by a very particular malice that made her adept at warfare, but somehow less of a human.

Was this what Peter needed to hear?

Although he was unpracticed in fatherhood, Priest knew better. He wouldn't lie to the boy, of course, but he would scour the truth for something suitable he could give to the boy, something a mother, like Rebecca, would want her son to have.

"Your Mama was very strong," Priest said. He was dismayed when Peter's face remained unchanged, as if he couldn't care less about his mother's resilience, about the primal will she possessed to push herself to physical and spiritual limits that impressed even him. There was a lot, Priest realized, that he had learned from Rebecca and in exchange, he had taught her of love.

But Peter's naivety was demanding. He couldn't possibly comprehend the value of his mother's strength, nor her piety. The boy wanted something more tangible, a bit of humanity that he could attach to the phantom who lived not even in his memories, but only in his vaguest dreams.

And it would be difficult to satisfy that longing. Rebecca wasn't so much workable clay. She couldn't be sculpted and reshaped into a different woman, especially now, when she was dead. It would take more of an effort on his part to discover what Peter would come to cherish about her, for father and son could not possibly love her in the same way.

Priest took a minute to think. The sprawling compound that made up the orphanage, the series of low-ceilinged buildings connected by rambling, shaded passageways, was a labyrinth that held sound. The long rooms captured the slightest noises and sent them spiraling down corridors, slipping beneath doors until they built up inside the tiny, closed spaces and rattled around in the alcoves.

Priest could hear the other children at their morning lessons, the clatter of desks lids lifted and dropped, chalk grinding against a much abused board. And he remembered, suddenly, that Rebecca had grown up in an orphanage before the clergy found her. She had told him about it, when he was still a novice and sick for the distant comfort of his home. She had told him stories from her childhood and, as he got to know her better, Priest had become more adept at noticing the evidence of her upbringing, the small, slivers of her life that remained untouched by Church law and doctrine.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the hot air, gritty as it was with desert dust and sand. "Your Mama," he said, "used to like to sing."

Peter blinked, his skepticism surfacing in his expression. "Sing?" he asked, testing the word.

Priest flushed. He recognized the boy's cynicism already welded into place. There was almost no room for the simplest of pleasures, Priest knew. Necessity and the will to survive had scrubbed humanity of most of its culture, lessening the appeal of the largely useless arts. But there were soft edges in life yet, tiny graces that could be found if one looked hard enough. Priest was glad that he knew enough of Rebecca to still recall her humanity. He remembered the rare occasions he had caught her singing, once in the armory, when he was still a novice and just passing by on the way to the dormitories. She had been taking inventory of the weapons and humming a little under her breath, the words of her all too secular song smothered by the otherwise sanctimonious atmosphere. And there had been other times, after they became lovers, when he would awake and find her sitting on the edge of his bed, singing an old folk ballad from the Wastelands as she pulled on her boots.

A faint smile of amusement made Priest's lips twitch. It was the incongruity of Rebecca's habit that touched him the most, the hidden quirk that he had found so endearing both then…and now.

"Did she have a pretty voice?" Peter asked.

Priest looked down and saw that his son had edged closer to him on the bed. The light from the sun threw long, rounded shadows on the floor. Priest traced the outlines of their silhouettes with his eyes. He was surprised at how comforted he felt to have Peter near him.

"Your Mama's voice was nice," he replied. _Plain_, was what he really wanted to say. Unadorned, but not rough. Rebecca could carry a tune, but not that far. But he had fond memories of her folksy vibrato.

Peter wiggled his feet around, the toes of his boots still a good inch or two away from the floor. He had all but forgotten his slice of cornbread, leaving the napkin open on his lap and a scattering of crumbs on the crisp bed sheets.

Priest grinned to himself. He had missed this, the perfect irregularity of children, the fickle moods, the flights of fancy, the innocence that promised to last, even beyond the hard lessons that the world had to impart.

"The other kids here," Peter said, tapping his boot heels together, "still remember their parents and families. They talk about their mamas and papas. Timothy's papa was a conductor on the railroad. And Jackie, she says that her daddy was a lawman and she has his badge to prove it. Other kids, they have pictures from back home. Sister Elizabeth lets them keep the photos tacked over their bed or in a little frame on their nightstands. That was the one thing I was always jealous of, I suppose. I never had any stories about my mama or papa that I could tell. I didn't even have a picture…"

"But I do have a picture," Priest said suddenly. His heartbeat was thudding in his ears, off-tempo to the smacking noise Peter's boot heels made. He remembered the picture he had taken from Outpost 10 after the attack, most of the image ruined, splattered with spilled oil, but there was enough of it left to make out Shannon's image and Lucy's.

Priest pushed himself off the bed, reaching for his over-tunic that he had rather carelessly draped over a series of pegs that had been screwed onto the back of the door. It didn't take him long to find the photo folded up inside an inner pocket. He hurried back to the bed, trying his best to smooth out the creases that had left long, perpendicular wrinkles on the paper.

"I probably should have told you earlier," Priest said to Peter, "but you have a sister."

The boy blinked, seemed to hesitate and then scrambled to sit on his knees, his slice of bread hastily deposited on the washstand. "Sister Elizabeth never said-" he began wildly.

"She couldn't have known," Priest replied. He held the photograph in shaking hands, allowing Peter to catch a glimpse of Lucy posing in what was obviously her best dress. The girl's expression was serious, but not without the provoking pout that came with late adolescence. But her eyes were wide and dark, still clinging to girlhood as she stood casually with her hand on her mother's shoulder.

"Her name is Lucy," Priest supplied. "She's just about eighteen now. Has a man of her own and she lives-"

"Is that my mama?" Peter all but snatched the picture out of Priest's hands. He was staring at Shannon, who looked appropriately dignified and motherly.

Priest's heart sank like a stone, the jagged edges tearing him open anew. He was riddled with losses, old and new and his grief, once deferred, was eager to have its way.

"No," he said shortly. "That's Lucy's mother, Shannon. Your mama isn't in this picture."

"Oh." Peter sat back on his heels, disappointed.

Priest cursed himself for his ignorance. Of course the boy would want to see a picture of his mother. A few recollections could not sooth the wild yearning his son experienced. The bond between mother and child, though distanced by time, by both life and death, was still intact. And Priest, aching already as the realization dawned on him, would never be enough for his son just as he was. The boy wanted his mama. He wanted the one thing that Priest was absolutely helpless to give him.

And it was, of course, his fault.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, watching as Peter's lips curved into a frown as he studied the dog-eared picture. "I…I can try to get a picture of your mama for you." Priest knew there were some photos of Rebecca still around, clippings from newspapers, when she had been the head of the Order. Some of the other Priests might have held onto them, Esther, maybe. She had always looked up to Rebecca. But even if Peter saw his mother, Priest knew that the boy wouldn't find what he was looking for. He'd only see that humorless face, the jagged nostril, her too hard eyes, which hid a similar sadness and a reproach that haunted him from beyond the veil of death.

Priest sank, weak-kneed, onto the bed beside Peter. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "that I don't have much to show for your mama."

Peter seemed to think about this. He pulled his gaze away from the picture and glanced at Priest. And in that instant, the innocence of his age fell away and he looked grateful, not sympathetic, but grateful. "It's all right, Father," he said, his fingers touching Priest's arm. "I never even thought I'd have you."

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><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Thanks so much for reading! And no, I haven't forgotten about Rowan/Priest. As soon as I finish this fic, I have another story planned which will deal with their relationship quite extensively. ;)

The next and final chapter is in the works and should be posted soon. If you have a free minute, please take the time to review. I truly cherish all the comments I receive for this fic. Take care and be well, everyone!


	3. Day Three: Family

**Author's Note: **Sorry! I know, I know, I should've had this chapter posted ages ago. I honestly meant to, but real life intervened in a big way and I just didn't have the time/energy to finish up this fic. I've been having some serious (but non life-threatening) health issues lately that involved going out of state for testing and surgery and feeding tubes, so it took me forever to get back into writing mode. I do sincerely apologize for the delay, though. If it weren't for you, my awesome readers and reviewers, I would have lost my inspiration long ago. Once again, thank you all so much for your dedication, support and patience. I cannot begin to express how grateful I am. I do hope this last installment lives up to your expectations. Enjoy and once more, thank you!

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest.

**Day Three: Family**

The afternoons were almost unbearable. Priest, who was accustomed to working near the great furnaces underneath Cathedral City, felt himself dizzied by the white hot blades of sunlight that beat down on the open Wastelands. The orphanage sat in the middle of a shallow basin of land and the sunlight seemed to pool around it, chasing away the meager shadows that clung close to the sides of the buildings. During his stay at the compound, Priest found himself scurrying from corner to corner, trying to soak up the coolness of the thin shadows, his back turned against the desert winds, laced as they were with stinging sand and the heat of Hell.

But if the sisters and their charges were affected by the heat, they handily passed off their suffering. On the third day of his visit, Priest was stunned as he watched his own son play in the yard after lunch. Peter ran with the other boys, the lot of them a herd of hardy little beasts, raised in the unforgiving eye of the sun, away from the dank pollution of the city and the trembling fear imbued by Church doctrine.

Priest stood under the awning of the veranda and discreetly mopped at his brow with the edge of his sleeve. As he observed Peter's carefree games and gambols, he was ever aware of the other children sneaking glances at him. And then there were the sisters, the ones who would linger by the windows or pause in the corridors whenever he walked by. They were young too, he realized, only a few pitiful years older than the children in their care. He hated it most when he felt their eyes on him. He hated it most when he caught them staring and saw them blush.

Rebecca had been shy once, a girl trapped in an ungainly woman's body. A child without parents, who had been taken away, singled out from the teeming masses and domesticated. Priest wondered how many times over the course of their affair she had regretted giving herself to him. And he wondered, during the few precious months they had spent together, if she had begun to hate him.

Priest leaned back against the brick wall of the veranda. He watched Peter running with the other boys and decided that the guilt he had lived with was something of a blessing.

His mood turned meditative, mellow. The simplicity of the children's games amused him and he took heart from their happiness, found hope in their smiles, which were genuine. High, ringing laughter bounced off the brick. Priest felt the throb of the noise in his chest, a steady echo that mirrored the beat of his heart and the great sigh of the air in his lungs. The group of boys Peter had been playing with had organized a new game, one with a tough little leather ball that they battered around the yard with sticks. His son let out an excited yip when he finally managed to outrace his companions and smash the ball across the yard with the end of his bat.

Priest followed the course of the rolling missile. It skittered over the flat ground, stopping only when it hit the curb of the veranda, about a foot from Priest's right boot. He looked up and saw that the rest of the boys had scattered, afraid of this strange man with his marked face and settled frown. Priest found his son's eyes and knew that the game was over. There was nothing he could do but try to make amends, to soothe the spoiled fun.

Bending at the waist, Priest snatched up the ball. The leather hide was bruised and scuffed. Beads of sand had worked their way in-between the stitching. He hitched one shoulder up in a shrug and jerked his head in Peter's direction.

"Here," he said and lightly tossed the ball back to his son.

Peter caught it, dropping his bat in the process. After a moment's hesitation, he threw it back.

The ball hit Priest in the stomach. He lifted his arm, cradling it in the crook of his elbow. He was slightly surprised at the force Peter had managed to put into his throw. The skinny boy had a bit of strength that came from wholesome food, fresh air and a moderate amount of exercise. Not for the first time, Priest found himself silently thanking Sister Elizabeth for her care and diligence. Rebecca, he was certain, would be pleased with her child.

And he was too, of course. He was amazed by this awkward, gangly-legged creature who could have been his shadow, a boy growing up to resemble the father he had never known and the mother he would never meet.

A knot curled up in Priest's chest and rose up into his throat. He swallowed and tossed the ball back.

Peter caught it and examined the scarred leather, his knuckles bulging as he juggled the ball from one hand to the other. The high sun cast odd shadows on his face. He looked lost in thought.

"You've told me some things about my mama," he said slowly, "but I never got around to asking about you."

Priest dropped his eyes, hesitance sparking to life inside him. These were the questions he the feared most, if he was being honest with himself. The probing queries. The chances for misunderstanding, for misspeaking. Inwardly, he wished that he had been a better man, not only for his son, but for Rebecca also.

_Too late_, he told himself. He imagined Rebecca being forced down on her knees in front of the Monsignors before they put a bullet in her head…

"Father?" Peter's voice jolted him back to reality.

Priest raised his head, an acute pain in the back of his neck. He shook his head to dispel the ache. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I'm listening."

But his reticence had already reached Peter. The boy rolled his shoulders and pretended to look at the ball. "I only wanted to know…maybe…I just wanted to know where you came from. Sister Elizabeth says we're all born somewhere, even though we ended up here. Like Darcy, she came from one of the big cities. And Rachel told me that her folk were all from Jericho, where the trains run through. I know Sister Elizabeth said I was sent out here from Cathedral City…even though I can't remember it, I was just a baby. She said my mama came from there and I was wondering if you did too. You have pale skin, like the kids from the cities have on account of there being no sun. But you don't walk like them, all stooped-shouldered and you don't have their accent."

"I guess I don't," Priest answered, amazed by the child's astuteness. He had an easy intelligence about him and despite himself, Priest felt a smile lift his lips. "I was born in one of the Outposts, a town called Augustine."

"Is it far from here?" Peter asked.

Priest ran his tongue along his teeth, thinking, counting the miles. "Far enough. You'd need a fast bike to make it in under two days."

"Is that where you'll go then?" Peter asked suddenly. He paused, a faint flush darkening his already tanned skin. "I only wanted to know…Sister Elizabeth says you'll be heading off soon," he said, the words artlessly jumbled together in his mouth. "Is that true? Will you leave for home?"

_Home_. The word sounded stale and empty, even as Priest repeated it over in his mind. His concept of home had become rather skewed over the years. At first, home was the place he had shared with Shannon and Lucy, where he had loved and lived and laid the trembling, tender foundations of family out on the blustery plains near Augustine. Even when the clergy found him and brought him to Cathedral City, giving him a narrow bed and later a private cell in the Order's monastery, he had used Shannon and Lucy to identify home. Home was out there, beyond his reach. Home was a sacred space, a sanctuary he would have again someday when the war ended. But after the years had passed, Priest had allowed time and change to take its toll. Shannon's home became Owen's home. And it had been easy, oh so easy, for Priest to resign himself to an unsettled, nomadic lifestyle. He learned to live not where his heart was, but where he could find work, in the greasy, grim tenements above the coal mines in the city. Home was something he had given away and couldn't get back. Home wasn't something he could make or find, but rather measured in the price of his sacrifice.

Priest squinted through the sunlight at Peter. He knew he wasn't going home, but how could he explain that to the boy?

And how could he make his son understand that he couldn't come with him.

Because that's what Peter was asking him, really.

"I will leave," he said at length. "But I won't go back to Augustine."

Numbly, Priest raised his hand and caught the ball Peter threw to him. The leather hide was warm and slick with sweat from the boy's dirty fingers. Behind them, in a squat belfry on the roof of the orphanage, the afternoon bell began to peal. The other children dutifully abandoned their games and tramped across the yard, past the veranda and back inside to their lessons. Peter and Priest alone remained, with the wind and the sand and the sky.

Priest tossed the ball back to his son.

Peter's attention had slipped in the intervening minutes and he had to take a quick step forward to catch the ball, his hands darting out like a striking viper. He stood shuffling his feet in the dust, chewing on his lip with the few milk teeth left to him.

"Then where is it?" he asked. "Where is your home, I mean? Sister Elizabeth said they keep Priests in the cities nowadays."

"I used to have a room in Cathedral City," Priest replied, remembering his apartment with its single bed and the pot-bellied stove he had in the corner for cooking his meager meals and boiling his morning tea from the dry, tasteless roots he saved up to buy from the marketplace. "I don't live there anymore," he said. There was no way he could possibly explain his act of defiance against the Church, when he had willingly exiled himself in front of Monsignor Orelas and his congregation.

"Then where do you stay?" Peter asked.

Priest was still waiting for him to throw the ball back. His hands felt empty. "I move around."

"Why?"

For the first time, Priest experienced a surge of anger. He wanted to give Peter the answer he deserved, something better than an excuse, a truth more worthy than his shallow lies.

"Priests are needed in many different places," he explained with some difficulty, "especially these days." He paused and thought of Marcus already plotting revenge, a fiendish counterattack that could very well catch him unawares, when and where he was most vulnerable. Priest looked at his son and remembered what had happened to Lucy. The sudden weight of responsibility descended on him, dragging his shoulders and creasing his brow with worry.

He had never imagined, now, when he should be alone in his life, that he would have so much to protect.

Peter fumbled with the ball and then tossed it back in a high, smooth arch. "You mean you still have to chase after vamps?"

"Yes," Priest replied. There was a raw ache in the back of his throat when he spoke. He was uneasy with the frankness of Peter's questions. All along, his son had been satisfied with easy answers, but today, he was asking more of Priest, curious not about the past, but about the future.

And the future was too indefinite for Priest to understand. Somehow he would have to make sense of it, sort through what remained of his guilt and conflicted love. It was the first bit of parenting he had ever truly attempted, the first time he had squeezed himself into the role of father and tried to do what was best for his son.

"It isn't what I want," Priest said slowly. The words were sticking together on his dry tongue and the walls of his mouth were as rough as sandpaper. Conceding victory to the sun, he took a step back into the shade of the veranda. "Being out there, chasing vamps, don't think that I prefer it, Peter."

The boy scrunched up his face. He almost missed the ball when Priest tossed it across the yard to him. "Then why don't you stop?" he asked with the cutting logic of youth.

Priest considered the question for a second and he considered his own selfishness. It would make sense to stop, he thought, to finally free himself of the yoke the Church had harnessed him into so many years ago. And if he wasn't a threat, Marcus wouldn't come after him. Once neutralized, Priest was harmless…and safe. But then he looked at his son and the flimsy walls around the yard and tried to imagine what a raiding herd of vampires could do to a place like this. The thought wasn't pleasant and it made his stomach hurt.

"Your mama and I made a promise," he said. "We took a vow, like all Priests do. And that means we can't stop, even if we get tired or sick or old. We owe something to other people who can't protect themselves. It wouldn't be fair if we didn't help them. It wouldn't be fair—"

"But what happened to Mama," Peter interrupted. His hands went limp, the ball rolling from his fingertips to the dust at his feet. 'What happened to Mama wasn't fair either."

Priest lowered his eyes. "Well, two wrongs don't make a right."

"It doesn't matter what's right," Peter replied quickly. His voice had gone soft, thin and moist with the tears Priest knew he had been holding back. 'It doesn't matter to me….I…I want you to stay!"

Despite the heat, Priest felt the blood freeze in his veins. He took one hesitant step towards Peter before rushing out from underneath the veranda to embrace the boy. His son pressed his forehead against his stomach and sobbed. Priest absorbed his sorrow, tainted as it was with the loss of his mother and his sense of abandonment which could not be denied. But even as he held the child close to him, he realized that Peter had already overcome the disadvantages of his birth. He had strength, probably gleaned from Rebecca, that allowed him to surpass the role of the victim. It was that resilience, that pure, unadulterated courage that made Priest love the boy, love him more fiercely than he thought he ever could.

He wrapped his hands around Peter's shoulders and hugged him back, claiming the child as his own, his flesh and blood, a piece of his soul passed down into another living being. And all he could say, over and over again was, "It's all right, Peter. It's all right."

Peter broke off into hiccupping sobs, his shoulders jerking as he tried to catch his breath. His arms had reached around Priest's back and he fisted his fingers in his black overcoat, holding his father fast as if he could possibly keep him from being torn away.

"Sister Elizabeth says you have to go," he mumbled in a watery, warbling tone. "Sister Elizabeth says you can't stay and I can't leave with you. But I thought that's why you came to find me. I thought that you were going to take me away."

Priest placed his hand on top of Peter's head, his palm flattening the coarse strands of reddish hair. There was nothing he could say to placate the boy. There was no soothing pantomime he could offer to dull the sharp edges of a cruel world. Priest had long become used to the harshness of life, the raw pain that accompanied his every breath and beating heart. And yet, he hoped in vain to shield Peter, to provide him with the safety that only a home could bring, a secure, comforting place where the boy could grow and nourish his innate strength until he was a man.

Priest tasted the bitter bile of his disappointment when he realized that again, sacrifices would have to be made. For it was his own heart he denied now, not Peter's, by pulling away from his child.

"You wouldn't want to leave with me," he said, hoping the conviction in his voice would catch and cradle the desperate boy. "You wouldn't want to leave your friends here and go out…out there. This is a nice place. This is a safe place, Peter and it's more than most children have. More than your mama ever had. She would be mad if I took you away from all this…and I would be wrong if I made myself happy and kept you with me. But you'll learn, Peter, you'll learn that life isn't so much about happiness, it's about survival. That's the one thing I want to teach you now and what your mama would want you to know. Maybe some other day, some other day soon, I can teach you about happiness. But not now. Now, we must be patient."

"For what?" Peter asked thickly. He rubbed his runny nose on the back of his hand.

Priest patted his hair. He knew better than to make promises to the boy. He knew that hope was unreliable, no more than a lie fed to those who were weak in the mind to begin with. But a deep fissure ran along his heart, eroding his strength and judgment when he looked at the child, when he looked at his son's lonely, starving face and found himself wanting to give him more than he had.

Rebecca had already paid the ultimate price for their child. Now it was his turn.

"Look," he said, the word scraping in the back of his burning throat, "I'm not saying that things will change soon, that I'll be able…that I'll be free to be a proper father to you, but…" Priest paused and chewed the inside of his cheek.

Peter's eyes suddenly lit up. He was more than willing to fill in the blanks for his mute father. "You'll come back?" he added, his words shaped into a question that he himself had already answered.

Priest found himself nodding. "Of course."

"And someday, maybe," Peter continued.

"I'll take you with me," Priest replied.

"And I can live with you," Peter said. His fingers hand curled around his father's belt. For a second, his youth shone through him and his smile was genuine, not the nervous, reflexive grin he had flashed Priest over the past few days during the most awkward moments of their visit.

Priest felt a slow tide of warmth trickle down his strained throat and into his chest and belly. He bowed his head until his nose was buried in Peter's hair and he could smell the soap from the boy's morning wash mixed with the airy scent that came from being out on the Wastelands. He kissed his son's forehead and smoothed back his reddish bristles and felt his whole body relax, an unnamed tension seeping from his limbs.

Priest knew he had finally done right by the boy. He had picked up where Rebecca left off and surprisingly, found a little happiness for himself along the way. And there was no telling, really, if he wouldn't be able to take Peter away with him someday, if they could live together in a small Outpost far from the cities, close enough to visit Lucy and Hicks when they wanted too, and safe from the grasping power of the Church, safe and sound, in their own little family, safe and sound…

Priest looked down past Peter's shoulders and saw that the ball had rolled close to his toe. He had a few hours left, before he had to climb back on his motorcycle and head off to meet the others at the rendezvous point. He had time to spare for himself and for the boy he had nearly forgotten, although his heart wouldn't let him.

"Go ahead," Priest told his son, reaching down for the scuffed up leather ball.

Peter understood, of course. He had a way of knowing things, without needing useless words to weigh down true sentiment. His mother had been like that, Priest reflected as he tossed the ball back and forth between his hands. And that was a good thing, a fitting memorial to the sacrifice she had made out of love for her child…and for Priest too.

The sun was still high in the sky when Priest tossed the ball back to Peter, the shafts of buttery light bringing some color into his son's face and shining in his blue eyes, which he owed to his father. It wasn't hard, Priest thought, to look at his Peter and see himself gazing back. It wasn't very hard at all.

**The End  
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><p><strong><strong>**Author's Note: **Well, that's the end of this fic, but not the end of this story. As promised, I haven't forgotten about Rowan/Priest. There's another short, multi-chaptered story in the works that deals directly with their relationship after Cross, along with Priest's relationships with the other women in his life, namely Shannon and Rebecca. With any luck, I should have the first chapter posted in a few weeks. Thanks again for following this story and for being the all-around awesome readers you all are. See you next time and enjoy the summer!

Much love,

GreenWood Elf

**P.S. **If you're interested, I've posted some fanart for this series on my profile page.


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